Monster Dog

The movies these days are full of the “reluctant monster/hero” motif. Just this past weekend, I was treated with the rare opportunity to view one such movie, The Incredible Hulk. I found the movie strangely compelling, although I have to admit to not patronizing many movies, so my basis for comparison is, at best, lacking.

When Trinity was found on the side of the road just over two years ago, her “passenger side” front leg had clearly suffered injury. The woman who found her immediately e-mailed the rescue and dispatched photos, which were sent with the label “Monster Dog.” Trinity's ability to persevere through what had to be incredible pain and then the horrifying experience of being introduced to a pack of Miniature Pinschers both make her remarkable; a hero, even.

Notwithstanding the motif of the reluctant monster/hero a la Incredible Hulk, Hellboy, the Thing, the X-men, Trinity has no dissonance about her role in our world.
She is the unabashed lover of all. She is the quintessential dog: devoted and loyal companion, energetic and mischievious compadre, vigilant and conscientious caretaker, and unending and loving comforter.

If we had a yearbook here at MisFit Farm, Trinity would be voted most popular, not just because of her effervescent personality, but because of some unseen force that makes her tremendously attractive to other creatures.

One time I flew with a group of friends to have a “play weekend” in Chicago. We ate dinner one evening at a restaurant called Club Havana. (It was in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, circa 2001 for any Chi-towners reading this.) It was, as the name would indicate, a Cuban restaurant. Our waiter was this heavily-accented, short, bald, musty-smelling man named Jose. As attractive as that may sound, it does not even begin to capture the raw. . . appeal Jose oozed. The three women at the table (two of whom – the hard-sell variety), were practically eating out of Jose’s hand. He told us the flowers on our plates were edible. We ate them. Slightly drooling, we chomped on the sugar cane he proffered up in our Cuba Libres. We were abashed when he had to admonish us that, no, we should not eat the decorative twigs adorning our flan desert plates. The only explanation for Jose’s strange appeal: phermones.


Trinity shares Jose’s power of pheromone, which based on the reluctant monster/hero motif, even for over-adrenalized green gamma-stoked monster/heroes, seems to come with the package. Today, we celebrate two years with the lovely Trinity, our hero, companion, compadre, caretaker, comforter, and reluctant, although tolerant vixen.

En Fuego!

I’m not trying to brag or nuttin’, but K bought me what has to be bar-none the coolest “bike” -- evah.

She Lives!

Azure is not going to die. After she got so very sick, she improved ever so slightly. Not a lot, but enough to refuse any medications we tried to foist onto her. Enough to some times join us on our walks. Enough to take a lunge at a well-intentioned and quicker-than-he-looks neighbor Steve. Enough to demand to be petted, enough to voice her displeasure at our refusal to let her into the bedroom to sleep in the bed, and on occasion, enough to tip over the trash can to drag its contents across the floor.


But to say she was back to her old self was not truly a reflection of the mischievous little creature we have come to know and love. Her appetite had not truly returned, and she was losing weight. The types of food we have used in the past to coerce compliance were ineffective at prompting even a second sniff of interest. Her energy level seemed far too low. Our dog toy bill has been extraordinarily manageable.

Across the past few weeks, we have become alarmed enough to collect urine samples and take them in for analysis. We have looked for infection. Loss of kidney function. Presence of anything abnormal. Absence of anything normal. And every single test result has come back just that: normal.

Notwithstanding the normalcy of the test results, Azure just did not seem normal. I was worried. I was watching her every move for signs she was going to either come ‘round the bend or kick the bucket.

Then one day it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe Azure wasn’t really that sick. Maybe she is just playing us. It could happen. She is that smart, or perhaps we are just that stupid. Either way, I decided, “Azure is not going to die,” and I quit watching her for signs of impending death. And amazingly enough, I quit seeing signs of her impending death.


This evening at dinner, I made Azure leave the table area and behave. She sat and scowled at me as I happily sat next to K and devoured my BBQ chicken pizza. After dinner, for the first time in a long time, I felt a little tickling on my leg and looked down to see Azure holding a tug rope in her mouth, looking up at me with those blue eyes and pink piggy face, asking for a game of tug. So we played. She isn’t as strong as she was before, and we weren’t as rigorous as we played in the past, but Azure initiated play, even after a long evening walk and outside time doing lawn and garden work. Her tail was wagging and her eyes were sparkling, even after she rolled over to submit to a chest rub as I celebrated my victory. Later in the evening, when I leaned over to give K a kiss and then caught Azure’s eye, K cautioned, “If she poops on your clothes again, you have only yourself to blame.”

Azure is not going to die. At least not of natural causes anytime soon.

Relax, it's only Pig Sh*t

I was called home by the contractor to meet an official from the county health department last week.

The good news is: he seemed to be nonplussed by the abundance of dogs here at the farm. The bad news is: he was not nearly alarmed enough about the dark, oozing liquid one of the subcontractors observed leaking into our west basement wall. They were concerned about the possibility the uphill neighbors had cut corners in the building of their septic and lateral fields. The gentleman from the health department assured me it was not runoff from a human waste source, but theorized it was the product of runoff from the neighbor’s hobby pig farming operation a/k/a the 4-H project run amuck. In this case, literally run amuck.

Now there’s a tough one to figure out. Do I prefer to have my neighbor’s waste seeping into the basement or my neighbor’s pig waste seeping into the basement? Hmmm. . .

Seriously. I really had to think about that question. I am sad to say I am somewhat more relieved to discover “Oh, it is only pig sh*t.” This homebuilding thing has lowered my standards considerably.

It reminds me of this time I was working the fish cannery in Alaska. There was a lot of dysfunction associated with the melting pot of summer workers, the long hours, and the really pretty hard work. One day, the very creepy man whose job was to walk around and sharpen our knives had taken a belly full of harassment from two young guys from Fairbanks. He repaid their harassment by walking up to them and nonchalantly spraying mace in their faces. When my friend and I were talking about the incident a few hours later, we were stunned to realize we were talking about the episode with this oddly detached and unconcerned tone. “Oh well, it was only mace. It’s not like it was muriatic acid or he stabbed them or anything.”

I see the look of stunned disbelief reflected on others’ faces when I say, “well, at least it’s only pig sh*t.”

Undeterred by – well, anything, the work on the house has continued. The excavator did a little fancy earthmoving to re-direct the pig farm runoff around the north of the house. Since “it’s only pig sh*t,” this seems to be a suitable response for all parties involved, although I really did harbor a secret hope that the health department, zoning or some other responsible county official would address the issue of the six – 16 pigs residing along my property line.

Yes Fred, Two Miles of Pipe

Just to place my very slight hyperbole into context, last night’s torrential rains “moved” the temporary (I assume) flexible pipe into a more photographic position.

Our neighbor(?) came down yesterday evening to discuss the situation, and was greatly illuminated by her ability to witness the two miles of pipe laying on the ground. The very, very long period of embarrassing air bursts emanating from her pipe the evening before were quickly explained.

On a side note, any anxiety we had about this situation negatively affecting the neighbor’s (?) toilet habits was also resolved. She is comfortable evacuating in the great outdoors.

K called me from home today to report that a lovely old gentleman and presumed member of the subcontracting team who will participate in the next steps of basement and foundation construction was here. He was slopping around in the muddy quagmire known yesterday as our excavated basement, mumbling to himself and brandishing a shovel. His handiwork is evidenced thusly:


Seriously. He hand-dug this little trench to encourage flow-off of some of the water that had pooled in the excavated area. K sounded a bit mystified when she called. I was alternately impressed and charmed when I came home to pay witness to his efforts.

And, because I know the real reason anyone cares about this blogging endeavor is because of the stories about our kritters and not the continuing saga of our weak homebuilding efforts, here are a couple of contributions:

It did rain overnight. The lightning began around 3:30 a.m. K got up with the labs to turn on a light (so the lightning was less obvious) and medicate them. By 4:00 a.m., the storms had started in earnest. I got up with the dogs, turned on the radio, sat down to do some work I had been lying in bed perseverating about anyhow, and listened for a break in the rain. At 5:00 a.m., I thought I could hear a lull in the rain. I grabbed a flashlight and dashed out to complete goat, horse, chicken and cat chores.

Today was the day we had been expecting the Vet to come “geld” Bill. Although I didn’t have much hope that any part of the day would be salvaged for such activity, I decided to place Bill’s halter on so we would be ready just in case. So I grabbed the halter, and put it on Bill in the cold. In the rain. In the dark.

And here is another reason I love K. When she called to report the arrival of the lovely fellow with a hand spade, she casually commented she had gone down to check on the goats and Bill and had removed his halter. It seems he was having trouble eating with the muzzle part in his mouth.

And as a final note, the dogs love the new landscaping. Mercy especially enjoys the big mud hole and its therapeutic benefits for her paws.

In the Hole

So, if one piece of heavy equipment in the yard is a good thing, it would stand to reason two pieces of heavy equipment in the yard is even better.

Wrong.

That second piece of equipment would be the emergency backhoe brought in to assist the emergency plumber with making the emergency repairs to the neighbor’s (?) water lines the first piece of heavy equipment unsuspectingly pierced.

Go ahead, ask the question out loud. No, the real question. The one that is the subtext of the first question that came to mind.

The answer: I swear, we are not idiots. As evidenced by the inordinate amount of time spent preparing for the heavy equipment, we attended to every detail. We checked with the water company, the phone company, the cable company, the electric company, the propane company, every imaginable city and county office of: zoning, planning, platting, plotting, a daydreaming.

And as for the first, more socially appropriate question: we do not know why the neighbor’s (?) water line runs down the center of our property.

The defense presents as exhibit “A” this crude drawing:




Wherein MisFit Farm is the area in red, Steve and Carolyn’s homestead is roughly represented by the area in yellow, and the property owned by the neighbor (?) is grossly underrepresented in green. The brown area represents the house, which is not even close to scale or proportion. The left side of the image is south-oriented, and the neighbor (?) is located to the north of us. Steve and Carolyn are to our west.

The point I am trying to make is that this isn’t a “neighbor” in the conventional sense. We actually rarely see or interact with this person, since the part of our property that abuts hers isn’t even accessible without the use of a machete, anti-malaria serum and hip-waders. The access road to her home runs on the west side of her property.

The neighbor’s (?) water line, as it turns out, runs smack-dab down the center of our property.



To answer the second socially appropriate question: We have no idea what we are going to do. Our contractor was super – he had someone out this afternoon to “repair” her line so she wouldn’t be forced to bring her rubber ducky and bathrobe here to the trailer to bathe in the morning. But I shudder to think what the extra two miles of pipe will do to her already challenged and inadequate water pressure. And I shudder to think of the “who pays” and “how much” questions which will likely face us tomorrow.

Stay tuned: we can’t wait to see how this saga ends.

On Deck

Change has been afoot – apaw – and ahoof – at MisFit Farm. We received an e-mail from the contractor two weeks ago, letting us know that our house had come onto somebody’s radar. The excavators had one basement to dig and then our basement was next. His estimate was that they would complete the first basement early in the week, and then, weather permitting, arrive to dig ours at the end of the week.

Here is where K and I experience a fundamental disconnect. It is of the “glass half-full or half-empty” variety. K immediately seized upon THURSDAY as the day we should expect to see the heavy equipment. Rather than cast myself as a pessimist, I like to think that I viewed the estimated arrival time as task-oriented, rather than time-oriented. So I did not choose a particular day upon which to fixate, but left myself open to seeing the equipment arrive at the Farm after they were done with the basement before ours.

K is not a sports person, but I tried to explain the concept of “batter up, MisFit Farm on deck, and someone else in the hole.” The only part of the analogy K embraced was the idea that there would be a hole – for our basement. She really liked the sound of that.

Thursday came and went, and a dejected and disappointed K sat at home, anticipating the arrival of the equipment.
Thankfully, this disappointment did not dampen her elation to come home this afternoon to find destruction, clearing, and at long, long last, heavy equipment.


And I guess I have to admit, my sports analogy doesn’t really hold up, since tomorrow, we get a hole.

Little Moments

I make no illusions that living at MisFit Farm has been, in many respects, my salvation. It provides me with wide open spaces and room to make big mistakes. It gives me many things outside myself to focus on. It offers plenty of creative outlets for my hyper-ass. It routinely offers up little moments like these:

Lessons from High School

I remember this lesson from High School:
If you put a drugged-up chick in your car, there is a near-certainty that you will end up with drool on your window, and a high likelihood that you will end up with pee on your seat.

Within the past 24 hours, Azure had begun acting a little lethargic. Returning home yesterday evening, we noted that her color was a little – off. It seemed like she was missing her usual piggy pinkness at the nose, and maybe the membrane around her eyes seemed a little washed out. She was eating and drinking fine, and willing to accompany us on our evening walk. She was her usual protective self over her pork roll treat. She just did not seem to have her usual bon vivant.


Not entirely certain what to do with a new, low-key version of Azure, but certain we wanted to keep a close eye on her, we let Azure sleep in bed with us last night. With the exceptions of delivering a couple of upper cuts to my chin around daybreak, I don’t know that she moved all night long from the little nest she made plunk in the middle of the bed, head resting on K’s sacred “Mickey Mouse” feather pillow.

Having returned from our vacation last week to find a variety of random objects misplaced and missing, it had not entirely escaped our attention that Coffee’s prescription bottle of Deramaxx turned up in an altered state, appearing to have suffered at the jaws of a massive chewing. Last weekend, Azure welcomed our yearly geese visitors with a dinner party whereupon she crashed their nest and consumed all of their eggs. In making the acquaintance of a new visitor to MisFit Farm, Azure rushed into the pasture to gulp down some breath-freshening horse dung breath additive. And these, of course, represent only the most egregious and obvious intake transgressions of note from the past week. How, then, to narrow down the offending source of malaise?

You begin the narrowing-down process thusly: sedate her to draw blood for a full work-up including a liver panel. Upon identifying some high white blood cell counts and what may look like a little bleeding in the tummy, direct an overweening Mom to take her home with a handful of medications, instruct Mom to offer up a cottage cheese and yogurt diet (can you hear Azure jumping for joy and shouting “YEEEES!”?), and keep a close eye on her for “abnormal” behavior. I don’t know how we are expected to modify her behavior to discourage things like perching on the kitchen counter, climbing on top of buildings, and destroying everything that crosses her path when the absence of this behavior would be the indicator that there is something “wrong” with Azure.

The good news is this:
Even though Azure peed on the seat just like those chicks from high school, unlike those chicks, I got to bring this one home.

Boo-Boo *hearts* Azure

Based on purely non-scientific observation, it appears as though Azure possesses a certain. . . attraction that is not readily apparent to some of us. Notwithstanding my admonitions to Coffee that dating crazy women only leads to trouble, he continues to be morbidly fascinated, even attracted, to Azure.

The other inhabitant of MisFit Farm with an intense interest in Azure is Boo-Boo, the goat. The problem with being adored by a goat is that it looks like it could hurt. At least the part where they ram their head and horns into you. I guess the whole “sneaking up behind you and giving you a love tap with my 8 inch horns and tongue sticking out” is a sign of goat adoration. I am perhaps not as brushed up on my goat-speak as I could be.

What we have been able to discern is that the only dog Boo-Boo has any interest in whatsoever is Azure. You can almost see the stars in his eyes when Azure is released into the pasture to run. While the other goats are intent on feeding time, Boo-Boo lurks in the background, awaiting his opportunity to prevail upon Azure and to convince her that they are a match made in heaven. He is crazy about her.

While Azure may be crazy, she certainly isn’t stupid. So, much to Boo-Boo’s dismay, Azure cuts him a wide path. I have been lurking around, trying to capture glimpses of Boo-Boo’s love overtures on video, but the following is the best I could do.

The Squeeze Cheese Incident

MisFit Farm contains some staple ingredients. The grocery carts from weekly trips to the store almost universally feature “bunny milk” for K., “cheesy poofs” for me, animal crackers for the goats, and “squeeze cheese” for the dogs. Squeeze cheese serves as an inexpensive filling for Kong © toys, a masking compound for medication administration, and as seen here, a source of great amusement or an instrument of torture, depending on whether you are the squeeze-er or the squeeze-ee.

And because we are big fans of loose association, we offer this additional delectable cheese-themed video from a group called “The String Cheese Incident” (emphasis mine).
However you like your cheese, Bone Appetite!

Two Years

There is an amazing, barely perceptible place in the universe known affectionately as the “Dane hole.” I hadn’t realized we were traipsing into “Dane hole” territory when I hopped into the car and drove to Southern Missouri on Saturday, March 18, 2006. I thought I was headed to pick up a sweet, sensitive girl who would someday take the place of my boy, Coffee. I thought I was retrieving a girl who needed some extra TLC and a special place to settle into. I thought I was bringing home a girl who needed us more than we needed her.

How wrong I was. What I picked up was a whole new episode; a whole new experience; a whole new way of living. As it turns out, the fawn-colored girl I picked up has evolved into an ornery, entitled, delightful, jubilant celebration of life.

She reminds me of my grandmothers, not just because of her excessive, unannounced flatulence, but also because of her enthusiastic embrace of the mundane as she tosses a disemboweled fleece toy into the air in the living room; because of her unbridled joy in executing a perfect lope across the front yard; and because of her spunky, oblivious spring back into action when the lope ends in a tumble. She is completely unaware of her limitations. The fact that her walk resembles the crazy dance of a front-wheel drive pickup truck with bald tires driving on a frozen pond is completely lost on her. She is Mercy. You may worship her now. When I retrieved Mercy, I was advised by the Grande Dame d’Dane Rescue that we could select a different name for the peculiar fawn-colored girl I picked up that day. But each time one of us, bearing witness to a new variety of sit-and-spin, exclaims, “Oh, Mercy!” I am reminded of the absolute perfectness of her name. It features two of my favorite rhetorical tools: entendre and irony. Which pretty much sums up life with Mercy.

Daylight Savings Time with Bill

We were able to make a more or less smooth transition to Daylight Savings Time this weekend, buoyed along by the previous week we spent living on Eastern Standard Time while visiting the (second) happiest place on earth.

The trip was my first to the Disneyworld complex, and I remain incredulous that the happiest place on Earth could really be inhabited by all the crying, distraught, overwrought children and parents I witnessed in my time there. At the Farm, it generally takes a serious storm front or the deprivation of a very meaty bone to reach the fever-pitch tantrum casually observed in the Disney patrons. Emerging from a mucky, messy, cold and dreary Kansas winter, the weather in Florida was much more congenial, making for one very happy feature.

Not to be shown up, Kansas decided to tease us with a beautiful early Spring day on Sunday, to welcome Daylight Savings Time. We took advantage of the sunshine and daylight savings to spend some quality time with Bill the horse.

Bunny Ears

With impending Easter festivities looming in the not-so-distant future, we here at MisFit Farm have been working on our technique for consuming the forthcoming and inevitable carob bunnies.

On the first day, we leave the prized rabbit alone as we indulge in the consumption of delights more fungible.

Across the next couple of days, we allow bunny to remain intact and free to move about the trailer.

Unable to allow this untenable intact bunny situation to continue forever, a deep, instinctual impulse overcomes Azure.

Why is it always the ears?

There Were Rules II

As in a previous post, note the use of the past-tense. There were rules.

Before we made and broke the rule about “no more than two dogs,” and “no dogs sleeping in the bed,” we had a rule about the acquisition of “exotic” animals, or at least the acquisition of animals that had not been previously owned by members of our immediate family. The rule was that, before we could acquire said animals, we had to first get a book about the breed/species AND read it. Consistent with the rule’s intended purpose and contrary to popular belief, because of the rule, there are species of animals for which we own the book but not the creatures.

The rule was broken with the acquisition of Bill, the horse. To date, we have not been able to even locate a book that would begin to provide the range of information we need about owning and caring for a miniature horse.

Aside from the obvious reference value in having a book about the animal type on hand under the book rule, the reading process gives us opportunities to engage in a robust dialogue about arrangements, idiosyncracies and preferences in advance of the animal’s arrival here at MisFit Farm. Agreements are made about important things like: what types of behavior we wish to discourage; what methods will be used to discourage and/or reinforce behaviors; and, how we will respond and react to unusual situations. Through this process, we are often spurred on to seek out additional information and resources, giving us a good foundation for parsing out the good from the bad information obtained from other sources, such as the Internet.

That the book rule had been broken was made abundantly clear to me one balmy evening last week.

Bill the horse is a fun little fellow. We play with his jolly ball. We go for walks. We chase in the pasture. We were engaging in a combination of these types of play activities after I got home from work. As it was beginning to get dark, I turned my attentions to the chores at hand and headed out of the pasture and up to the barn. Crossing the pasture, unsuspectingly enjoying the fresh evening air, I distinctly felt a touch on my shoulder blades. I turned around just in time to observe Bill reared up in what looked to be the process of removing his hooves that had, moments earlier, ostensibly been placed lightly, yet insistently on my back.

The best way I could explain what had happened to K in retelling the story is that it looked like Bill wanted me to give him a piggyback ride. Thankfully, he wasn’t too insistent on it, and was not dejected when rebuffed. If I didn't know better, I would swear he was actually laughing at my indignation.

Having entertained various explanations for his behavior, the one thing I feel I can conclusively and unequivocally determine is that there is not a book in the world that will provide me with a satisfactory answer for just what in the world happened in the pasture that evening. Nor do I probably really want to know. I am not that type of girl.

K's Baby

Here is a synopsis of the conversation that took place the day I brought Azure here to MisFit Farm (keep in mind that I had been dispatched to take care of the “Azure” problem):

K: So, how did it go? How are you doing?

A: Uh, well, uh. Not exactly as planned.

K: Oh?

Pregnant pause.


A: Well. She didn’t eat any of the others.

K: She – who? Eat – who?

More silence.

A: Azure. Mercy. Trinity. Coffee. Skeeter.

K: Azure is there?!?!? At the trailer?!?!?

A: Uh.

K: Azure is there?!?!? At the trailer?!?!?

A: Well.

K: Azure is there?!?!? At the trailer?!?!?

A: Uh.

K: Azure is there?!?!? At the trailer?!?!?

Silence again.

A: So, you’re almost home?

K: Oh. My. God. When I get home, will I find Azure there?

A: Uh, yes?

K: What happened?

A: Nothing. I took her and Trinity to Kevin’s to do introductions and everything was fine. So I brought her home.

K: You brought her home? To the trailer? Azure? To stay?

A: Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. She’s doing fine. Everyone is fine. This will be fine. Everything will be fine.

So here she is at the trailer. Azure. Still. And everything is fine.

Snow Days & Dogs

It has been a long time since I have seen a winter produce so much white stuff. I shoveled the front porch and stairs to the trailer last night just after midnight and by 5 a.m., I had to force the front door open against the newly fallen snow. As the snow continues to fall and accumulation ranges from 6 – 12 inches (with drifting), schools are closed, appointments have been cancelled, and traffic has been brought to a trickle. A snow day has been officially declared for Northeast Kansas.

Work, productivity and house-building are negatively affected by the white stuff, but the dogs seem to derive a sick pleasure from it.
I was recently reminded of the song, Solsbury Hill, when it was casually mentioned in a book I just finished reading. Popular lore has it that the song is about Peter Gabriel’s choice to leave the band, Genesis, but I like to think the song is about the more mundane, day-to-day choices we make: enslave ourselves to the “machine” or find meaning in our work; embroil ourselves in the pursuit of more material possessions or be contented with the blessings of gifts bestowed; emphasize that which we are “not” or embrace the things we “are.”

In Mercy’s case, the choice is to go skipping, leaping, and bounding through life.

As for the other inhabitants of MisFit Farm, in accordance with the “new trick” command we have taught our old dogs since Mercy’s arrival, “Get out of the way!”

Civilized

Lest we be accused of being uncivilized, it is worth noting that, in addition to our newly annointed "house beer," MisFit Farm also boasts a “house wine.”

Country Is. . .

As much as friends and family are able to keep abreast of events at MisFit Farms through these blogs, we recognize the limitations inherent in the process. We are sometimes chastized, "We hear a lot about the dogs, but how are the goats doing?" It seems that the majority of posts reference the dogs, who provide us with more than ample fodder for entertainment. The goats and Bill, the horse, admittedly receive lower billing.

On the other hand, the goats do concentrate most of their energies on the consumption of food and the production of manure. How much can a person write about these two activities without one or the other becoming the kind of fetish that demands professional intervention?

In order to appease the goats so they do not invoke the "fairness doctrine," we put together a little footage of them doing what they do best: eating and producing manure. The choice to use a Tom T. Hall song to accompany the footage seemed like a no-brainer.

I spent a large amount of my childhood at my grandparents' dairy farm. Tom T. Hall is an inextricable character in the time spent with my grandparents, where their milking barn always smelled of a bleach-water, cigarette and ivory soap combination, and where 61 Country played on a small radio 24 hours a day. When my grandmother died, I was in high school. As she headed out to finalize the distribution of my granparents' possessions with her siblings, my mother asked if there was anything of my grandmother's that I particularly wanted. I could think of only one thing: her Tom T. Hall album.

When I told K of my intention to use a Tom T. Hall song for the blog, she giggled and asked, "Will you be using your favorite Tom T. Hall song?"

While I did not use this Tom T. Hall song for this blog, it is worth noting that I like beer. I like goats. While at the liquor store yesterday, I found a magical convergence of both:
. . . and the official "house beer" for MisFit Farm has been found.

Elopement

I have worked a myriad of jobs in my life. Through the course of my sorted, sordid employment experiences, I have been introduced to numerous important lessons and linguistics. I have learned everything from how to skin a fish to how to administer shots. For example, the first time I recall having encountered the phrase “elopement risk,” was in a brief stint at a community adult day care program, where I also coincidentally learned to two-step and shoot pool.

I was re-acquainted with the phrase when I went to work for an organization that runs group homes for people with cognitive impairments, known here in Kansas as Intermediate Care Facilities for the Mentally Retarded. In both locations, as the addition of the term “risk” would seem to indicate, elopement was seen as a bad thing. Heretofore, I had always thought of “elopement” as an exciting, romantic term, one which conjured up images of a love that could not be denied, the exhilaration of the open road, and the freedom of unencumbered travel.

Perhaps it is my age. Perhaps it is an overweening and misdirected maternal instinct. Perhaps it is the lull of a careful, measured life. Whatever the reason, I have come to embrace the phrase “elopement risk” as exactly the type of situation that demands immediate attention and intervention.

In less anxious times, I would romanticize Trinity and Emmett’s elopement risk as another manifestation of their deep and multi-faceted love and mutual adoration. Really, how could I blame them? I have spent the better part of my life as an elopement risk when I was not busy self-fulfilling my prophecy of elopement reality.

Beyond the fear and anxiety experienced by the bi-pedaled non-elopers as we envision scenarios involving our two, sweet lovebirds in a close encounter with trains, automobiles or other undesirables, I have to confess to a low level of longing. I wish I could be there to see them dipping under barbed wire fences, splashing across creeks, zig-zagging from tree to tree with their noses to the ground, and chasing each other through open fields.

These days, the elopement risk amounts to another point of desperation in what we hope are the waning days of our life in a trailer. The house has been designed with a designated dog room overlooking a dog yard that will be measured in square acreage, not footage. As with everything else, far from the wild abandon of elopement, the dog yard has been carefully designed and thought through so they will have at least the illusion of freedom and a variety of topographies while they remain safely restrained.